USA vs. NSA: Legislative Efforts to Curtail Spying

USA vs. NSA: Legislative Efforts to Curtail Spying

The "Restore Our Privacy Act," (SB 1168) introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, goes several steps farther. First, it requires the government to provide "specific and articulable facts" supporting each and every object of a Section 215 order, which currently address multiple sources. For instance, the single court order disclosed by Greenwald authorized the government to monitor every Verizon business customer across the country, including the organization I lead, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (which is why we're represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a lawsuit challenging NSA programs).

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Dear friends,
Today, the United States Congress struck a significant blow against the basic human right to read, write, learn, and associate free of government’s prying eyes.
Goaded by those who let fear override democratic principles, some members of Congress shuttered public debate in order to pass a bill...

UPDATE, January 12, 2018: The Senate could vote Tuesday on a disastrous NSA surveillance extension bill that violates the Fourth Amendment. Click the link at the bottom of the page to email your Senator today and tell them to oppose bill S. 139.
The House of Representatives cast a deeply...

Multiple nonprofit organizations and policy think tanks, and one company have recently joined ranks to limit broad NSA surveillance. Though our groups work for many causes— freedom of the press, shared software development, universal access to knowledge, equal justice for all—our voices are responding to the same threat: the possible...

The Supreme Court announced today that it will not review a lower court’s ruling in United States v. Mohamud, which upheld warrantless surveillance of an American citizen under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. EFF had urged the Court to take up Mohamud because this...

One of the government’s most powerful surveillance tools is scheduled to sunset in less than three weeks, and, for months, EFF has fought multiple legislative attempts to either extend or expand the NSA’s spying powers—warning the public, Representatives, and Senators about circling bills that threaten Americans’ privacy. But the frenetic...

If you’ve been following EFF’s work, you’ll know that we’ve been fighting against the creeping surveillance state for over 20 years. Often, this means pushing back against the National Security Agency’s dragnet surveillance programs, but as new technology becomes available, new threats emerge.
Here are some of the biggest legislative...